Real family gardening

When we moved in to our new garden two months ago we inherited a giant cat toilet sandpit. It was an instant hit with the under-gardeners who have spent many an hour happily digging out feline faeces and hunting for dinosaur bones (Andy’s Dinosaur Adventures has a lot to answer for). Given the not entirely sanitary… Continue reading It’s the pits…or life’s a beach

The name of Stephen and Nick Duffy’s folk rock band keeps on springing to mind as I wander round the streets at this time of year, catching the heady fragrance of lilac on the air, full of eastern promise. For most of the year, lilac (Syringa) is an uninspiring shrub, but in late April, early… Continue reading The Lilac Time

Loving these bad boy wildflowers fighting for territory on the Lewes to Kingston cycle path: comfrey, nettles, dock, campion, teasles and more. This is what happens when plants with big egos get together.

Christoper Lloyd – the legendary garden writer who lived and gardened at Great Dixter in Northiam, East Sussex, and made it famous by writing about it for more than 40 years. Christo, as he was affectionately known, was the youngest of the six children of Daisy and Nathaniel Lloyd. Nathaniel made his money in colour… Continue reading 8 Great things about Great Dixter

I have always loved secret gardens, since first I read Frances Hodgson Burnett’s classic. So it was with delight that I entered Brighton Kemptown’s own hidden treasure, the garden that once belonged to 32 Sussex Square, bought in 1830 by Lawrence Peel, younger brother of the Prime Minister. Sussex Square is a beautiful, grand Georgian… Continue reading Secret gardens